Nationals Fireworks Fail

(2008 photo by Preston Keres - TWP)

The thing that's great about the Nationals' Fail series is that each item is spectacularly perfect. They're not sad, pitiful, unfortunate Fails, like the kind that might afflict the Clippers. They're happy, bright, uniquely entertaining Fails.

Like, if the uniform for the seventh reliever would be misspelled, that'd be sad. Uniform malfunctions that just happen to affect the team's best, most marketable stars are awesome. A misspelled Screech bobblehead would be sad. A misspelled Teddy bobblehead is awesome. An age-fraud case involving a dude nicknamed Grumpy would be sad. An age-fraud case involving a dude nicknamed Smiley is awesome.

So a sad team like, say, the Pirates, might have a tragic Fireworks Fail, where some burning piece of shrapnel falls on a baby boy, leading to cataclysmic results. For the Nats, no one is hurt, although the fireworks depris debris happens to land on...wait for it...the D.C. Fire Chief! Perfect Fail! Nats win again!

"[Rubin] said debris did fall on him - he was not hurt," [a fire department spokesman] wrote. "He did have a safety concern, that's why the decision was made - so the process can be examined and adjusted, if necessary."

What's next in the Fail series? Selling spoiled hamburgers to an FDA exec who just happened by the Park on a lark? Selling Joel Hanrahan figurines that turn out to be made entirely of wicks? Drafting several prospects who turn out to have severe half-smoke allergies? Hey, it's better than trying to figure out whether 14-41 15-40 is on pace for 120 losses. (It's not.)

UPDATE: The story gets more interesting, as Cherkis has a source saying Rubin was hit with paper debris, and that he overruled his own fire inspector on the safety issue despite not being at the game on business. Keep reading here.

I've been to two Nats games this year and have been showered with ash multiple times during both games. Only the Lerner's would charge their fans $50 for a ticket and $20 to park then shower them with terrible baseball and firework debris.

But I guess that is still better than staying home and listening to Dibble.